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RECENT ATTEMPT 

* 



TO DEFEAT THE 



CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS 



IK FAVOR OF 



RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, 



CONSIDERED IN REFERENCE 



TRUST CONVEYANCES 



HANOVER STREET CHURCH. 

i 



> 



BY A LAYMAN 

SECOND EDITION, 

7 r* U. : 






BOSTON : 

Sold by Hilliard, Gray, and Co., No. 134, and by Bowles 

and Dearborn, No. 72, Washington Street. 

1828. 



Price 4 cts.for 1 copy ; 37 cts. for 12 ; $2,25 for 100. 



■j 



■ 



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PRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER, 



Hiram Tupper, Printer, Broomfield Lane 



THE RECENT ATTEMPT. 



In laying before the public this ingenious attempt of the 
clergy of the Orthodox party in Massachusetts, to resume 
the power of which the increasing light of two centuries had 
gradually deprived them, I am not conscious that I am in- 
fluenced by any other motive than a wish to preserve to the 
laity their just and legal rights ; rights given to them by 
God, and guarantied to them by his revelation. I am ready 
to admit that I am what is called a Rational Christian ; but 
if I knew of any attempt on the part of the Liberal clergy to 
usurp powers which can only be lawfully exercised by lay- 
men, I would as readily expose the project to public indig- 
nation. 

That the public may fully comprehend the nature 
and design of the extraordinary attempt made to bind to all 
future generations, the descendants of several thousand peo- 
ple in this city, and to effect by the forms of law, what the 
inventors feel conscious they could not produce by eloquence 
or the force of truth, it will be necessary that I should give a 
brief sketch of the history of Christians, so far as it respects 
the most valuable of their rights, the right of thought. It is 
a matter susceptible of perfect proof that during the apostol- 
ic age and the two which immediately followed it, the liber- 
ty, freedom of thought, and entire equality, which seem to be 
among the most distinguished principles of the gospel, were 
felt, acknowledged, and in practice admitted. The new 
Gentile convert, still under instruction, called the Cate- 
chumen, was the only exception, and a reasonable excep- 



tion it was, because no man could be said to be a Chris- 
tian, till he understood what Christianity teaches. 

So long as the Christians were a persecuted sect, this en- 
tire equality, founded upon the eminently christian graces 
of humility and charity, subsisted. But when the Roman 
emperor and his empress embraced Christianity, and the 
fashion of the court and the swords of the legions were the 
instruments of conversion, these fundamental principles of 
Christianity, entire equality among the lay and clerical breth- 
ren, and the enjoyment of equal privileges, disappeared. The 
simple system of Christianity, so delightfully displayed in the 
life and language of our Saviour and his apostles, was not 
suited to the taste of the emperor, who had been sovereign 
pontiff under the gorgeous and showy, but horrible system 
of heathen mythology. There was at once formed a com- 
plete alliance between church and state. The despot raised 
the humble teacher of Christ into the rank of nobility. 
Wealth and titles were lavished upon him. It was not sur- 
prising, that, dazzled by this elevation and corrupted by 
wealth, he should feel grateful to the hand which had thus 
exalted him, and, forgetful of his divine Master, should con- 
spire with him in the oppression and degradation of his poor 
flock. 

Such is the history, and the unvarnished history of 
Christianity. The laity sunk into slaves — slaves of the 
basest sort — mental slaves — not daring to think — even 
deeming it a crime to think. Is this not strictly true ? 
Where is the bold man who will deny it? Yet it is true, 
as I believe, that this degradation of the human mind is 
considered justifiable, in Boston, in the nineteenth century. 
Such at least are my own views of the legal instruments 
invented and devised for Hanover Street Church. The 
christian public will however judge for themselves; they 
will take nothing upon my simple assertion. I ask them 
simply to look at the facts, and to disregard any colouring 
which may proceed from my zeal in favor of what I believe 
to be among the most vital parts of the christian system. 

To return to our history of the abuses of Christianity. The 
poor teacher of Christianity — having laid aside his script and 
his staff and assumed his scarlet and purple robes ; invested 
with unlimited ecclesiastical power ; being created the sove- 
reign disposer of spiritual gifts; as the ages grew more and 



more dark, and learning and true religion disappeared, being 
the sole depositary of the scriptures, which, as Christianity 
spread into the west of Europe, were, as to these nations, en- 
veloped in a foreign language — soon acquired as despotic a 
power over the prince as he had long exercised over the sub- 
jects. Hence arose those monsters in the christian church, 
the Roman pontiff and the Grecian patriarch. For nearly 
twelve centuries these ecclesiastical despots divided the 
sovereignty with the civil rulers, and vied with them in the 
debasement of the human mind. With the revival of let- 
ters, and by the aid of the art of printing, the human intel- 
lect recovered some of its rights. The first triumph of re- 
turning knowledge was achieved at the expense of ecclesias- 
ical despotism. The pope, that proud pontiff who had giv- 
en law to kings and people, felt the first shock. The Refor- 
mation took place — but what a reformation! The first sub- 
stitution in Germany was the power of a feudal prince, and 
in England, the first defender of the Protestant church was 
that mild prince of immaculate memory, Henry the VIII. 
He declared himself the sovereign pontiff of England, an4 a 
tyranny practically greater than that of Rome, was erected 
on the ruins of the papal power. Protestantism was a mere 
name under his bloody auspices. The amiable Edward af- 
forded a short breathing spell to the advocates of religious 
freedom. Under the Catholic queen, Mary, the feeble light 
of Protestantism was nearly extinguished. But whatever 
praises may have been bestowed upon her masculine succes- 
sor, it must be confessed, that the true principles of Protest- 
antism were checked rather than advanced during the long 
and absolute government of Elizabeth. The feeble and ty- 
rannical reigns of the four Stuarts and the civil wars, afford- 
ed better opportunities for the spread of religious freedom. 
Under the reign of Charles I., New England was settled, and 
by the most rigid class of Dissenters. The principles of 
these settlers were, that the church was of right independent 
of the state ; that each congregation was independent of all 
others, and enjoyed the right of selfgovernment. Those 
principles, followed out to their fair and necessary conse- 
quences, would have brought them to the immortal and im- 
perishable truth, that man, an immortal being, is accountable 
to God only for his religious belief; that, as such, his right 
to form and express his opinions is imprescriptible — as free 
1* 



as he feels his own thoughts to be, when he retires within 
himself. 

But our ancestors were only half converted to free prin- 
ciples. Their old prejudices closely adhered to them. It is 
no dispraise to them to admit this. Freedom, that noble prin- 
ciple of action, the natural state of man, not of uncivilized, 
but of cultivated, enlightened man, is a right slowly compre- 
hended. The French revolution, the revolutions in Mexico 
and South America prove it. The slavery which of all others 
men are the most unwilling to spurn, is that exercised under 
the cloak of religion ; yes, of that religion, which announces 
the equality of man, and the freedom of human judgment. 

The South American states, declaring most nobly as they 
have done, that no slave shall exist in their territory, have 
by their Constitutions provided that the Holy Roman Catho- 
lic faith is the established religion of these infant states ! 
How much more difficult is it then to embrace the sentiments 
of religious freedom ! Our ancestors, let us admit what our 
records most abundantly prove, were tyrannical and bigot- 
ed on religious topics. But they were not alone in this 
respect. The Huguenots of France had never the power to 
show their intolerance, but Luther and his German associates 
— Calvin and his Swiss friends — the Dutch Reformers, and 
especially the Scotch Presbyterians, had most ample opportu- 
nities of proving that they did not yield to the Inquisitors of 
Spain in the intolerance, the bloodthirsty zeal of their ambi- 
tious usurpation. The blood of archbishop Sharpe, himself 
a Protestant bishop, will forever be a spot on the robe of the 
Scottish Covenanters, which ages of liberality will not efface. 

It is then no reflection on our ancestors to say, that they 
were not imbued with the true spirit of christian liberty, 
that they had no correct ideas of the fundamental principles 
of Protestantism. As soon as they were quietly settled in 
•this country they adopted principles as despotic as those of 
the church of Rome. 

Surely the opposition to the church of Rome was not 
founded merely on its abuses, but on its assumption of the 
right to bind the consciences of men to all future generations. 
The doctrines of transubstantiation, of the worship of saints, 
and other absurdities, were, like witchcraft and alchymy, 
absurdities, which would have fallen, like the doctrine of the 
revolution of the sun round the earth, by the increasing 



light of science, and the overwhelming power of the press ; 
but the essential victory of the Reformation was over the as- 
sumed power of a privileged caste, calling themselves emi- 
nently the ambassadors of Christ, to dictate to Christians 
what they should believe of a revelation open to all, and, God 
be praised for it ! within the compass of all tolerably educated 
minds, who piously seek the truth. Yes, this is the great 
triumph of Protestantism, that it put the bible into the hands 
of the laity ; this is what has rendered Wickliffe immortal, 
and has laid a much more solid foundation for Luther's 
fame than any of his doctrines, most of which are already 
obsolete, and will be soon, we hope, as well as Calvin's, only 
subjects of history. 

But of what use were these translations of the scriptures 
into the vernacular tongue, if, like the leaves of the Sybils, 
the only expositors are to be the clergy ? Are laymen en- 
dowed with the gift of reason, that attribute of a spiritual 
and immortal nature, merely that they may prostrate it at the 
shrine of men who are themselves fallible ? Why propagate 
the scriptures and publish them in ail tongues and languages, 
if the readers are after all, not to exercise the gift of reason 
in expounding them, and are to refer to creeds established 
two hundred years since by men who had just emerged 
from the errors of Popery 1 No. This will not do. 

Our sincere and pious ancestors, for whom no man liv- 
ing has a higher respect than I have, had no just ideas of 
eivil and religious liberty. This is a matter of authentic 
history. It cannot be a subject of dispute. They persecuted 
Roger Williams, Mrs Hutchinson, and the Quakers, not 
with fire and faggot, to be sure, but by banishment. The 
degree of the punishment did not affect the principle. The 
principle was, that the scripture is ou§s ; that is, the persecu- 
tors' ; the right to explain it is ours ; if you understand it in 
a different sense, you are heretics, and we have a right to 
inflict temporal punishments upon you. Thus producing ap- 
parent uniformity of faith by physical force, they proceeded 
to enact that no man should be a freeman, who was not a 
church member, and no man could be a church member, who 
dissented from any one of their metaphysical opinions, so 
cloudy and obscure, that not one church member in a thous- 
and could comprehend them ! The next step was to take 
care of the churches; and it was provided, in 1648, that no 



8 

man should vote ih the election of a pastor or elder, except 
church members. From this intolerant law, ■ the sharpest 
controversy arose ever known in our churches,' as Dr 
Beecher admits — the best possible [authority on this subject, 
though the last we should be disposed to adduce, on any to- 
pic which required accuracy. This controversy lasted till 
1692, when, in an age, be it specially noticed and constantly 
borne in mind, in an age, when all men were Orthodox ; 
when Liberal views of Christianity had never been broached 
in this country or Bfcrope, the natural sense of equity, and 
the detestation of the slavery imposed on the great mass of 
landholders who were taxed to the support of religious^ wor- 
ship, produced an entire repeal — an unqualified repeal of the 
odious law of 1648, and the whole power of electing pastors 
was placed, as it ought for ever to be, in the same persons 
who are entitled to civil power ; to wit, those liable to taxa- 
tion. Thus fell at one blow the usurpations of the church, 
or, in other words, of the clergy. But the ecclesiastical rul- 
ers were not so easily overthrown. The power so long and 
so fiercely contested, as Dr Beecher admits, was too sweet 
and alluring to be quietly yielded. Making great efforts at 
the polls, they succeeded the next year in procuring a law 
gtvingthe church and the people a concurrent right of choice, 
with a mutual negative on the votes of each other. In 
1695, the church, emboldened by success, procured another 
provision, that whenever the church should have chosen a 
pastor and the parish rejected him, the pastor elected by the 
church should be considered the legal pastor, if an ecclesias- 
tical council should so decide ; thus virtually restoring to the 
church and clergy all the obnoxious powers of the law of 1648. 
This last act was so odious, that it never was enforced in 
a single case, so far aa*we can find, from the day of its date, 
till the people, for the first time after the settlement of New- 
England, assembled for the noble purpose of settling for 
themselves and their posterity, the principles of a new and 
free form of government. By the Constitution of 1780, 
they swept away all the vestiges of monarchical and religious 
tyranny, and restored to the people the natural, inalienable 
right of electing, ' exclusively,' they expressly declare, 
their religious instructers The legislature, by an act in 
1800, entirely, as it seems to me, superfluous, since it could 
add nothing to the force of a Constitutional provision, did, 



however, by law confirm the exclusive right of the people of 
the several parishes and religious societies to elect their pas- 
tors, and swept away by a repealing clause all acts and parts 
of acts, the devices of ecclesiastical ambition, which were 
contrary to the Constitution. Within a few years after this 
act, confirmatory of the meaning of the third article, the 
highest courts of law in this State were called upon succes- 
sively, in various cases, to settle the true meaning of the Con- 
stitution on this point; and they have confirmed the rights, 
the exclusive rights of members — of all the members of 
towns, parishes, precincts, and religious societies, to elect 
their pastors without any control, let, hindrance, or impedi- 
ment on the part of the associations technically called 
' churches,' in the narrowest, and, in my judgment, anti- 
christian, and anti-apostolical sense of that term. 

Since the recent revival of a spirit of intolerance which 
has had no example^ from the banishment of Roger Williams 
and the murder of Servetus and the persecution of the fol- 
lowers of Arminius ; since a minority of the christian church, 
calling themselves by way of eminence the Orthodox, the 
Evangelical, the only true saints, have undertaken to, deny 
the name and character of Christians to a large body of di- 
vines, who, without other motive or inducement than the 
convictions of conscience, resulting from a most laborious in- 
vestigation of the bible itself, had dared to dissent from the 
early opinions of the first Reformers ; since these intolerant 
men, without consulting the opinions of their parishioners, 
have refused all intercourse with other christian teachers of 
equal piety and learning, and have pronounced that the lat- 
ter were unworthy of announcing gospel truths from their 
more hallowed pulpits, the Orthodox party have resorted to 
a novel method of restraining religious liberty. As the courts 
of law had fixed, on immutable foundations, the rights of the 
people, they have resorted to the artifices of legal convey- 
ancing for the avowed purpose of restraining the freedom of 
thought on the most important of all subjects. The device 
was this ; certain persons, assured that divine truths cannot 
possibly be better understood in future ages, than they now 
are by themselves, or than they were two hundred years 
ago by the Westminster Assembly in England, have pur- 
chased land, and built churches, and granted pews, on con- 
dition of perpetual servitude and submission. We shall be- 



10 

gin with the ingenious and highly labored conveyance in 
trust of the Hanover Street Church, and after giving an ab- 
stract of its clauses, and pointing out briefly its effects, we 
feel assured, that the whole Massachusetts public will agree, 
that a more complete case of moral and religious slavery 
has never been known, we will not say in this age, but since 
the times of Cardinal Wolsey, or of Stephen Gardiner, of 
burning and persecuting memory. 

Extract from the Trust Deed. 

■' This Indenture, of three parts, made this 15th day of 

March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
twenty-six, &c. Whereas a Church of Christ has been gather- 
ed, called the Hanover Church, the male members of which now 
in this city, are the parties of the third part hereof; and whereas 
it is intended, by the members of said Church, to maintain in the 
said House the Public Worship of God, under such Protestant 
Congregational or Presbyterian Minister of the Gospel of Christ, 
as the male members of said Church shall from time to time elect, 
independently and exclusively of such persons as may at any time 
form a part of the Congregation usually worshipping in said 
House, although such personsmay be Proprietors of Pews there- 
in ; to the end that by the blessing of Almighty God, a succes- 
sion of holy persons may be elected Pastors of said Church, and the 
faithful preaching of Christ crucified, agreeably to the general sys- 
tem of Doctrines expressed in the Westminster Assembly's Shorter 
Catechism, and in the Confession of Faith, owned and consented 
to by the Elders and Messengers of the Churches, assembled at 
Boston, May 12th, A. D. 1680, to be continued in the said House 
to the latest generations ; and whereas, after deliberation, it has 
been thought advisable that the fee in said House and Land 
should be vested in and held by a number of persons, members of 
sister Orthodox Churches, in Trust for the said Church of Christ 
gathered as aforesaid, and for the more perfect protection there- 
of, according to human judgment ; 

' To have and to hold,'' fyc. Then follows a covenant that they 
are freeof incumbrances, &c. 

' And it is hereby fully declared and expressly understood, that 
this sale and conveyance is made upon the trusts and for the 
purposes hereinafter expressed, and for no other use, intent or 
purpose whatsoever ; that is to say, upon this special trust and 
confidence, that the said parties of the second part, the survivors 
of them, their assigns and the survivors of them, shall and do 
permit and suffer so much of the said House and Land, as is de- 
signed for Public Worship, at all times hereafter, to be used, oc- 
cupied, and enjoyed, as and for a Meeting House, or place for 



11 

the Public Protestant Religious Worship and Service of the 
One Laving and True God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, by the 
said Hanover Church, and such Society or Congregation as shall 
regularly attend Public Worship under the ministration of the 
Pastor or Pastors, who shall from time to time be elected by the 
male members of said Church ; and shall suffer and permit such 
Protestant Congregational or Presbyterian Ministers of the Gos- 
pel as the male members of said Church shall from time to time 
elect and engage, and no others, statedly to preach and to per- 
form religious exercises and services therein ; and shall and will 
suffer and permit the Deacons, or a Committee of the said Church, 
to lease the remaining part of said House and Land, and to sell, 
demise and dispose of, or covenant and agree for, the having, 
holding and enjoying the pews or seats in said Meeting House. 

' And upon this further Trust, that they the said parties of the 
second part hereof, and the. survivors, their assigns and the sur- 
vivors of them, shall and will, from time to time, permit the Dea- 
cons of the said Church, or any Committee who shall be chosen 
by the male members thereof for that purpose, to ask, demand, 
sue for, recover, collect and receive all taxes, rents, issues and 
profits of said House and Land, and Cellar under the same, and 
the same appropriate and pay over as the male members of the 
said Church, at a regular meeting by a major vote thereof, shall 
order and direct, and to account with, and be accountable there- 
for, to the said Church only : and also, from time to time, to make 
such alterations and repairs in and upon said House, as the male 
members of said Church shall judge to be necessary or expedient, 
but free from all expense to the parties of the second part hereof: 
It being well understood that no proprietors of Peivs, who are not 
members of the said Church, shall ever have a voice, or be alloioed 
to take any part, or to act in the said business, or in the choice of a 
Pastor, either directly or indirectly, and that their title and right, 
interest and property in their Pews, shall ever be subject to these 
incumbrances, restrictions and reservations : And also upon this 
further trust and confidence, th.at as soon as the Trustees — that 
is to say, the parties of the second part hereof — shall by death 
be reduced to the number of seven, or at any time within eighteen 
months thereafter, that the surviving Trustees shall elect and ap- 
point seven new Trustees, and shall make all such grants and 
conveyances to them, as shall constitute such persons so elected 
joint Tenants with the surviving Trustees aforesaid, and in all 
respects whatsoever co-trustees with them — and so on, from time 
to time, and as often as the Board of Trustees for the time being 
shall by death be reduced to the number of seven as aforesaid. 

* And lastly, it is mutually understood and agreed, and again 
declared by all the parties hereunto, that the said House and Land 
are to be and shall be holden by the said parties of the second 
part hereof, and their associates and successors to be chosen afore- 



12 

said, upon the trust and for the uses and purposes expressed and 
declared in this Indenture, and for no other use, intent or purpose 
whatsoever.' 

I. The first remark we shall make upon this very extra- 
ordinary document, the first, of the kind which has come to 
our knowledge since the Reformation, is, that it is an attempt 
to substitute legal covenants and contrivances in the place 
of the old and shorter process (we may even say the fairer 
process, because there was no disguise about it), the sharp 
sword of the soldier and the unanswerable argument of fire 
and faggot. Lewis XIV., when he wished to repress the 
free opinions of our Protestant brethren, the Huguenots, mild- 
ly and humanely banished them from his dominions. Our 
Protestant brethren of Boston, in the nineteenth century, are 
simply content with covenants and provisos, clothed in 
legal language, by which the future heretic simply agrees 
to surrender his rights of conscience and of thought, on the 
pain and penalty of forfeiting his property in the church. 
The principle is precisely the same ; but it must in candor 
be admitted, that the modern ecclesiastical tyranny has been 
compelled to modify its penalties by the spirit of the age. 
Would it be ungenerous to presume that nothing but the 
want of power has produced the comparative moderation of 
the enlightened founders of Hanover Street Church ? 

II. The second reflection which this novel mode of co- 
ercing and restraining the human mind, the freedom with 
which Christ himself has made us free, suggests, is, that it 
is not an indirect, but a palpable, plain, undisguised attempt, 
by legal instruments, to defeat the express provisions of our 
Constitution, and the decisions of the highest courts of law 
within the State, upon the subject matter of these instru- 
ments. The Constitution and decisions secure to all pew- 
holders, parishioners, and others, who support the minister, 
the right of electing him. It is a natural and reasonable 
right, founded upon the principles of equality and of civil 
and religious freedom, which no convention, or contract, can 
weaken or destroy. He who supports a ruler, a teacher, or 
officer of any sort, ought to have the privilege of voting for 
him. If it is true of the choice of civil rulers, how much 
more valuable, how much more important and vital, the 
right to give his voice in the election of a pastor, on whose 



13 

capacity, judgment, manners, principles, and piety, may de- 
pend the moral growth and immortal hopes of himself and of 
his offspring. Any attempt, by whatever artifice or contriv- 
ance, to defeat this right, is a species of treason against the 
inestimable rights of a Christian. Whether the courts of 
law shall, or shall not, decide, when the question shall oc- 
cur, that such covenants against the rights of conscience, 
are ipso facto void, it would be presumptuous in me to say ; 
but I fearlessly say, that such an attempt is adverse to the 
Constitutional rights of the citizen, and subversive of that 
free inquiry into the scriptures, which is enjoined upon all 
Christians as a duty, and that it ought as such to be resisted. 

III. The third objection against the provisions of this in- 
strument, is, that they are a direct contradiction of all ilve 
past professions of the Orthodox. They have avowed 
that all they aimed at was the restoration of the members of 
the church to their concurrent right of election. Dr Beech- 
er, in his Result on the Groton case, expressly says : ' The 
effect of conferring upon either the church or the town the 
sole right of pastoral election had been ascertained by experi- 
ment , and found to be pernicious ;' a very strong term, ex- 
pressing Dr Beecher's solemn conviction from past history. 
He proceeds : ' It appeared during the controversy on the 
subject, that both bodies were too powerful in the State to 
consist with the exclusion of either from the right of suffrage 
in the election of a pastor. The efforts of the church to hold 
and of towns and parishes to acquire, the sole power in 
the election of a minister produced one of the fiercest contro- 
versies which ever raged in the State, until it was composed 
by the compromise of 1695.' Qroton Result, p. 40. 

Again, in pages 41, 42, 'It is the happy expedient of 
uniting the energies of the two corporations, civil and reli- 
gious, for the support of the gospel, preserving to each its 
character, rights, and work, without encroachment and with- 
out confusion, which constitutes the peculiarity and the glo- 
ry of the ecclesiastical organization finally established by 
our fathers. The system consisted in the simple expedient 
of giving to the church and society each a corporate vote in 
the election of a pastor, rendering a majority of the church 
at all times necessary for his settlement. This gave to the 
church the resources of the town, or parish, for the support 
of the gospel, and gave stability to our religious institutions, 
2 



14 

without the danger of civil domination, from what she had 
just fled;' alluding to the act of 1692, which gave the 
whole right of election to the parish at large. He pro-* 
eeeds in the following sublime tone of rapturous applause, 
which we shall soon see to be mere sound : — ' This system, 
silent and harmonious as the spheres, and propitious as the 
great laws of nature [materialism!] for eighty five years sus- 
tained the institutions of religion, and advanced steadily all 
the great interests, both of the church and the state.' This 
is indeed lofty and rapturous praise of the change in 1692, 
which restored the parishioners at large to their natural 
rights, of which they had been, by the church, the narrow, 
unhallowed spirit of ecclesiastical domination, a spirit con- 
fined to no country or age, a spirit as strong among the 
Scottish Covenanters as on the bench of bishops in En- 
gland, or in the conclave of cardinals at Rome — constantly 
and carefully deprived. We should give Dr Beecher credit, 
if we could with integrity, for this outpouring of a natural 
feeling of justice and love of religious freedom, if we had 
not before us the decisive proofs that it was mere profession. 
Before, however, we proceed to our comments on these ad- 
missions, let us introduce a farther extract, written in the 
same spirit : — 

In page 43, of the same work, the Doctor says : ' Let 
the churches be authorised to receive the support of such 
civil, or social bodies, upon condition of a concurrent vote 
with them in the settlement of a pastor according to the 
law from 1692 to 1780, and the usage of all Orthodox 
churches to this time, and it is all which they ask, and which 
the cause of religion requires.' 

There are many other passages to the same effect, which 
we forbear to, quote, because we are truly sickened at heart 
with such professions, when contrasted with the despotic 
provisions contained in the indentures of trust, which we 
have just recited. Will it be believed, could it for one mo- 
ment, be admitted as possible, that any man would pronounce 
such an eulogy on the advantages of admitting all the parish- 
ioners to a concurrent right of election, at the very moment 
that the church over which he had been installed the pastor, 
had, by the most rigorous provisions, excluded all non-com- 
municants from any voice, not only in the election of pastor, 
but in the peculiar civil right of fixing his salary, and of im- 



15 

posing taxes 1 Could Dr Beecher flatter himself that the se- 
cret would be kept, or that the contradiction between the pro- 
fessions and practice of the Orthodox party would not be 
exposed ? We do not ask Dr Beecher to reconcile these 
contradictions, but we call upon the more able and mo- 
derate portion of the Calvinistic party to explain these ap- 
parent inconsistencies. It should be remembered that the 
passages above quoted are not the language of Dr Beecher 
only, but of Dr Porter of Andover, and Mr Fay ; that the 
report was afterwards submitted to a Council, adopted, and 
the whole proceeding officially signed by Dr Porter as mod- 
erator. The following Orthodox divines formed .that Coun- 
cil : Dr Puffer of Berlin, Dr Porter of the Theological Sem- 
inary, Dr Beecher of Hanover Street Church, Rev. David 
Palmer of Townsend, Rev. Warren Fay of Charlestown, 
Rev. Samuel H. Tolman of Dunstable, and Rev. George 
Fisher of Harvard. 

Now we ask the inventors of this new mode of binding 
consciences, why they vested the sole power of election in 
the church, if, as these learned divines declare under the so- 
lemnities of religion, such a mode of choice had been ascer- 
tained to be 'pernicious '—' if the effort of the church to hold, 
and of towns and parishes to acquire the sole power in the 
election of a minister, had produced one of the fiercest contro- 
versies which ever raged in the State V Did the authors of 
this deed of trust wish to revive such controversies, and to 
restore a usage found to be so pernicious ? Why did they 
not allow a concurrent right of election, which the divines 
abovementioned, declare to be 'a happy expedient of unit- 
ing the energies of civil and religious bodies for the support 
of the gospel;' an expedient which they so rapturously 
praise as being ' silent and harmonious as the spheres, and 
propitious as the laws of nature, and which had advanced 
steadily all the great interests of the church and the state 1 ■ 
Why not suffer the pewholders to have a voice in the elec- 
tion of the pastor whom they are bound to support, and, 
what is of infinitely more value, whose ability and power 
to expound and to enforce the truths of our holy religion, 
may be of infinite importance to their immortal souls ? Or do 
these gentlemen deny that Christians who are not of the 
church have any souls, or if they have, do they contend that 
it is of little moment to them by whom or in what manner 



16 

they are instructed ? Why, we repeat, deny to pewhold- 
ers all right to vote in the election of their teacher, when it 
is expressly declared in our last extract from the Groton Re- 
sult, that the concurrent right of choice ' is all which they 
ash, and which the cause of religion requires?' You have 
done then a work of gratuitous and supererogatory restric- 
tion ; of wanton and uncalled for violence to. the rights of 
conscience, more than the most Orthodox ' ask, or than the 
cause of religion requires.' The whole matter was in your 
hands ; you were creating a new legal being. If your con- 
veyance is valid as it stands, it certainly would have been 
so, if it had been more just and liberal. It would have been, 
in my judgment, safer, because much less likely to be drawn 
into question. Why then was it done 1 Are we to infer 
that this is the true spirit of the Orthodox 1 that they are 
not satisfied with necessary powers, all that are requisite for 
the cause of religion, but they must have the entire submis- 
sion of the soul 1 

We have a right to infer from this single fact, this restor- 
ing the church to the * pernicious' powers conferred by the 
act of 1648, which produced ' the sharpest controversy that 
ever raged in the state,' that if the Orthodox party had now 
the civil power in their hands, for which they have shown of 
late a great hankering, they would give to all the other 
churches in the State the same exclusive powers which they 
have bestowed on this creature of their intolerance. Nay, 
more ; we have a right to infer that they would not permit a 
man to vote in civil concerns unless he was a church mem- 
ber, because they have not only vested their church with 
the same, but much greater powers, than the old churches 
enjoyed in 1648. Their church can fix the salary and tax 
the pews without consulting their owners. Will it be be- 
lieved that the children of the men, who, rather than submit 
to a penny half-penny tax on tea, threw away the scabbard 
and dared to the combat the mightiest nation on earth, could 
be brought to accept a title which has surrendered the power 
of taxation to a body in which they are not represented, and 
has deprived them even of the right of thought ? In the 
course of our reading we have met with one case somewhat 
analogous, though in some respects worse. In one of the 
southern provinces of France their existed a little monaste- 
ry, whose lands were granted on a singular tenure : who» 



17 

ever bought or took a lease of them became by that act, ipse 
facto, they and their posterity, bondmen and bondwomen of 
the monks. That was physical slavery ; this is mental sub- 
mission. There is this difference in favor of the Hanover 
Street title, that you may sell your property and get rid of 
your servitude, if you can find a purchaser so humbled and 
bowed down under theological influence and prejudices as to 
accept a title which declares him incapable of judging for 
himself as to the principles, character, manners, and talents of 
his religious teachers. Is this then the consolation offered 
to the children of these pewholders, when they repent of 
their fathers' folly, and are denied their natural rights, — that 
they may sell their pews 1 

We shall reply in the language of Dr Beecher, whose 
writings are a most fertile source of argument to his oppo- 
nents. See Groton Result, page 44. 

' It may be thought that there is no intolerance, nor persecution 
in this, because the church, if not pleased with the pastor elected 
by the town, has liberty to leave the sanctuary of her fathers, and 
the funds which their piety consecrated, and go out and build for 
herself and settle and support a minister of her own choice. But 
so archbishop Laud might have said to the Puritans ; " If you can- 
not conform to our ceremonies, it is no encroachment on your liber 
ty of conscience to require it, because the world is wide and you 
can leave your sanctuaries and funds and go out to the American 
wilderness and establish organic churches there and settle minis- 
ters, and manage worship to your hearts' content." But our 
fathers thought it intolerance that they might not enjoy, where 
they were, the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free.' 

So far the Orthodox Groton Council, and, changing the 
word 'church' for 'society,' it is the answer we should 
make to the offer of selling out, if the church by a majority 
of one should settle a minister against the nearly unanimous 
wish of the pewholders. Such cases have happened and 
may happen again. 

But the devisers of these deeds of trust may say, that we 
have no idea or wish of propagating controversies ; ' True, 
there were anciently controversies of the most furious cha- 
racter on this subject, even when the town had the purse- 
strings as a check upon the church ; but in our happy con- 
gregation, there can be no difficulty, because the church 
holds both the purse and the power. The church thinks 
and decides for the people, and is not that a great consola- 
2* 



18 

tion and privilege to the pewholders 1 When ministers 
are preaching on probation, there are diversities of opin- 
ion in common parishes as to their talents, their mode of 
preaching, and their doctrines. These diversities of taste and 
judgment produce disputes, and frequently parties. Now if 
the people have nothing to do with the choice, they will nev- 
er trouble their heads about it — there will be nothing but 
peace and harmony — it will be as quiet as an army. You 
seldom or never hear of turbulence there, except that, now 
and then, the legions rise and murder their chief. Cast 
your eyes through all Christendom, there is scarcely a spot 
in which the right of the people to choose their spiritual 
guides is recognised. The one hundred millions who ac- 
knowledge the supremacy of the pope, have no voice in the 
selection of their teachers, nor have that sect possessed that 
privilege for fifteen hundred years; and yet what a delight- 
ful calm, what sweet christian peace have they enjoyed. 
"We acknowledge that the peace might not have been so pro- 
found if they had been indulged with the use of the scrip- 
tures. Look again at the English church.* A. nobleman 
either sells or stakes an advowson or right of presentation to 
a church at a gaming table or at a horse race, and the win- 
ner sends his brother to take possession of the benefice. 
Yet all is quiet; the people recognise the authority so honor- 
ably obtained. Even in Scotland, the descendants of the 
sturdy Covenanters make no pretensions to the right of 
choosing their own pastors. They dutifully submit to their 
ecclesiastical betters, and take such preaching as the General 
Assembly think suited to their capacities. There is but one 
spot on the globe, and that only within fifty years, in which 
the people ever possessed the right of election, and this priv- 
ilege they have abused by choosing heretical teachers, and, 
in this vicinity, men, who are, in our opinion, not Christians.' 
Such we may suppose, would be the sophistical argu- 
ments, by which these trust deeds would be defended. To 
which I beg leave to reply briefly, that it is precisely because 
there is but one sunny spot in all Christendom ; one narrow 
tract of earth in which a christian people possess the primi- 

* It is not a little singular, that the English Episcopal Church, as 
soon as it was transplanted into America, lost its aristocratical character. 
It is now the most purely popular in its elections of any church in 
America, except those of Massachusetts under the Constitution of 1780. 



19 

tive liberty enjoyed by all Christians in the apostolic age, 
that I would defend it against open or insidious assaults at 
every peril. It matters not to me, by what means the old 
spirit of clerical usurpation is revived ; whether it be by le- 
gislative provisions or legal contrivances, I would expose 
their projects and oppose them by every lawful and constitu- 
tional weapon. As to the suggestion that they do not expect 
resistance and fierce controversies in their new churches, it 
is not true. If they had not expected resistance, they would 
not have multiplied the means of suppressing it, and stifling 
all opposition. Why commit the new church to the care 
and supervision of its sister churches ? Was the new church 
unable to take care of itself? Such were not the principles 
of the old Congregationalists. The title to their very edifice 
is vested absolutely in brethren of sister churches! Sister 
spies, rather, who are to watch over the opinions and meas- 
ures of this society ; to preserve it pure and uncontaminated 
from any heresy ; to see that its creeds and its preaching 
do not swerve from a single dogma of the Westminster As- 
sembly ; that not a single ray of divine truth shall enter its 
walls, except through the prism of Calvinism; and if the 
church and people should both prove refractory, then these 
brethren of other churches, in whom the fee is vested, may 
turn them all out, and preserve the edifice for the true church ! 
But the defenders of this deed of trust may say ; ' The 
purchase of pews is wholly voluntary. Every man who 
purchases a pew, does it with a perfect knowledge of his 
disabilities. Why then do you treat it as a measure leading 
to ecclesiastical despotism ? ' We doubt the fact whether 
the owners of pews generally were aware of all the humilia- 
ting disabilities to which they were subjected; but if they 
were, what becomes of their free-born children? They in- 
herit the pew, and have never assented to such a surrender 
of their personal rights. Could their father, as their ' feder- 
al head,' bind his posterity to all future generations, justly 
and equitably ? The feudal tenures were all voluntary ; 
from father to son they were renewed by voluntary payment 
of fines upon admission of the heir. But did the peasantry of 
France scatter to the winds, with less frantic joy, the parch- 
ments which contained the evidences of their servitude, or 
with diminished vengeance, set fire to the chateaux of their 
feudal lords, because the original conveyance was voluntarily 



20 

accepted 1 Will any man pretend, that if upon Dr Beecher's 
decease or dismissal, there shoulc^be a serious schism be- 
tween the pewholders and the church, that the former would 
submit with a better grace to the domination and supremacy 
of the church because the purchase of pews was voluntary ? 
No. Whenever the dissension breaks forth, and happen it 
will, and must, we shall witness one of the sharpest contro- 
versies in the Orthodox societies thus bound down by legal 
cords, which was ever seen in New England ; a controversy 
which will be the more bitter, in proportion to the length of 
time in which the galling servitude shall have been endured. 

So far is the voluntary consent of these pewholders to 
the surrender of their most sacred rights from diminishing the 
censurableness of this transaction, it greatly enhances it. 
Christians are enjoined to search the scriptures for themselves; 
to hold fast the liberty with which Christ has made them 
free. The scriptures abound with exhortations to this effect. 
No Christian can therefore innocentty surrender this right, 
or place himself in a situation, in which he may be deprived 
of the power of performing these duties. All arrangements 
or trust deeds by which Christians are induced, or seduced, 
to give up these rights, are censurable, and consent, instead 
of lessening, only increases the fault. 

It would have been surprising to us — if we had not care- 
fully traced, with indignant feelings, the incessant attempts, 
by force or subtlety, from the early ages of the church down 
to this day, to deprive men of their bibles (for to deny them 
the free right of putting their own constructions upon the 
scriptures, is a mockery more provoking than taking them 
away) — it would have been surprising to us to find men in 
the nineteenth century striving, by parchment provisions, 
to settle what opinions other generations shall hold in the 
twentieth ! One would have supposed, that the history of 
Protestantism would have taught them the utter vanity of 
such presumptuous assumption of powers, which belong on- 
ly to God. Let us point the reader to that proud pile, the 
magnificent mausoleum of the aspiring Wolsey, Christ Church 
Oxford. How many able and subtle lawyers were nobly 
compensated, for drawing up the charter and statutes of that 
Catholic college ! How many prayers were to be offered 
daily to the Virgin, the Apostles, and to all the Saints ! Yet 
the body of the deceased founder was scarcely cold, before 



21 

the professors in his Catholic college were declaiming against 
the pope, and all the mummeries of Catholic superstition ! 
But we need not send our readers to the elder world , we 
have instructive lessons at home. Look at the fate of the 
Huguenot Calvinistic church in South School Street. That 
too had its private deeds of trust and uses, which I remember 
to have seen ; but vain are human efforts to give stability to 
any thing in this world, much more to limit human opinions. 
In the short space of one century that church passed suc- 
cessively from a Huguenot Calvinistic society, to its persecu- 
tors a Roman Catholic one, and finally into the hands of 
the Universalists. But there is a still stronger example in 
the history of the opinions of the whole Massachusetts 
people. Two centuries ago, and not a sectarian could be 
endured ; a Quaker and an Anabaptist were an abomination. 
Now, the Baptists are leagued with the Orthodox, and are 
nearly as numerous as the whole body of Congregationalists, 
while the Universalists are treading hard upon the heels of 
both. In 1728, one century ago, there was probably not a 
Congregational minister, who was not a Calvinist ; perhaps 
some half a dozen individuals began to favor the Arminian 
doctrines, in secret, and were called moderate Calvinists. 
Now, at the close of the century, probably one half of all 
the Congregational clergy reject the Calvinistic doctrines 
altogether, and nearly that number either reject or doubt the 
Holy Roman Catholic Athanasian creed. By what means 
has this happy reformation been effected ? By the silent but 
sure progress of free inquiry ; and can you hope to stop it by 
depriving men of the management of their own property ? 
Is the human mind to be softened and subdued, or restrained, 
by acts of injustice 1 

This brings me to the fourth and last inquiry. Has not a 
man, or a body of men, a right to found a church for the 
maintenance of any religious opinions, and impose what re- 
straints he or they please ? To be sure they have. A man 
may found a mosque, a synagogue, or even a temple to Jug- 
gernaut. He may provide for what mode of worship he 
pleases, provided it is not revolting to public feeling. He 
could not oblige a wife to throw herself on the funeral pile of 
her husband, nor prescribe that worshippers should be 
crushed under the wheels of the idol's car. In such a case 
the laws would interfere. But let us for a moment admit 



22 

that the parties of the first part, the granters in the Hanover 
Street trust deeds, were the founders of that church. Still 
we contend that the vesting the whole power of electing 
pastors in the church, (technically so called in New England 
only,) is most unreasonable andunscriptural. Everyman of 
good sense, without the aid of a commentator, can decide this 
question for himself. I have carefully searched the New 
Testament with a view to settle this question for myself only, 
and I can find but two senses in which the word ' church' 
is used ; one signifying the great body of Christians through- 
out the world and in all times ; and the other, the whole 
body of believers worshipping in one society. Examine the 
epistles of St Paul, and you will see that every other construc- 
tion would be absurd. Exhortations to contribute liberally 
for other churches in need, must be addressed to the whole 
people. So also are all the injunctions addressed to the va- 
rious classes of society. To give to such a body as our limit- 
ed churches are, such an uncontrollable authority over their 
fellow Christians, is most unreasonable. The churches, in 
our adoption of the term, hold the power of opening or clos- 
ing the gates of their sanctuary at their pleasure. They are 
responsible to no tribunal for an unjust and oppressive exer- 
cise of this power. They are often few in number, and not 
unfrequently inferior in capacity and knowledge to many 
whom they have excluded, or who do not choose to submit to 
terms of communion, which their consciences cannot ap- 
prove ; so that the election may fall on those who have the 
least fitness for it. We know but little of the usages of the 
church during the lives of the apostles ; but there are two 
elections of officers stated at large, in the Acts of the Apostles. 
The first was that of an apostle to supply the place of Judas 
Iscariot. There, the disciples being assembled one hundred 
and twenty in number, Peter addressed them and recom- 
mended the filling the vacancy, which was done by nomina- 
ting two, and the decision between them was made by lot. 
Acts, 15 — 26. The second was the choice of seven deacons. 
The apostles called the multitude of the disciples together, 
and addressed them on the necessity of their having some 
aid, i and the saying pleased the whole multitude and they 
chose Stephen,' fyc. Acts, vi. 2. 5. So far then as we have 
any scripture authority on the subject, the church of Christ 
'$$ republican, and its elections popular, 



25 

But we do not perceive that Messrs Tappan and Walley, 
the parties of the first part, were the founders of this church, 
nor that they had any moral or equitable right to impose such 
restraints on a society of which they were not members— I avoid 
touching the legal question. I presume that Messrs Tappan 
and Walley were not the founders, because it is provided, I 
learn, that if the trust from any cause fails, the property is to 
enure to the benefit of the peivholders. I infer it, also, from 
a clause which prohibits the pewholders from suing for par- 
tition, which would not be necessary, if they were not the 
owners. If this be so, the proprietors of 'f)ews in Hanover 
Street Church are morally and equitably as much the own- 
ers of that church as the pewholders of other societies are 
respectively of their churches. No valuable consideration 
ever passed from Mr Tappan and Mr Walley, or from the 
trustees from sister churches, parties of the second part, to 
the proprietors of the pews for the surrender of their perfect 
rights over this edifice. Let us suppose a case, that both 
the church and pewholders should become Unitarians with- 
out a dissenting voice ; ought Mr Walley's and Mr Tappan's 
trustees to have the power of turning them all out, if they 
elect a Unitarian teacher ? Yet I see not why they may 
not by the terms of the deed of trust — I can see no moral or 
equitable ground for the creation of such a despotic power. 
If Messrs Tappan and Walley had no moral and equitable 
right to impose such conditions, I should be pleased to know 
whence they derived their commission to settle upon unborn 
generations, a creed agreed to many generations ago, with 
much difficulty, and with many misgivings, in an age run 
mad with metaphysical subtleties? Surely they can lay 
claim to no evangelical or apostolic authority ; for both the 
gospel and epistles are positively against such usurpations. 
They have not the flimsy pretext of antiquity, which is set 
up in favor of councils, synods, general assemblies, associa- 
tions, and consociations. Does their power repose on direct 
Divine aid and illumination, by which they were assured 
that the creed of the Westminster Assembly contains the 
true meaning of the Divine revelation 1 We presume they 
will not pretend it ; we fear that the highest authority 
which they can cite for such an intermeddling with the con- 
sciences of ' future generations,' will be found to be the 
New England Vatican. 



24 

Lastly, it may be asked, what right have you to interfere 
with the concerns of this church ? to which I reply, that I 
have at least as good a right to plead the cause of the future 
dissentients, and to vindicate their gospel rights, as Messrs 
Tappan and others had to deprive them of them. I might 
add, that my right to examine into, and criticise the conduct 
of the Orthodox party, is as great, and as fair, as the right of 
the Orthodox clergy, at all times, in public and private, in 
the pulpit and through the press, to speak of my religious 
creed, and of my religious friends and teachers with scorn 
and contempt — to deny them the christian character, and to 
endeavour to bring upon them the aversion and distrust of 
the less informed classes of society ;■ — but I despise, and dis- 
avow such motives of action. I feel, that I have nobler pur- 
poses. Slavery, whether of the body or the mind, is an in- 
fectious disease. It is a moral leprosy which taints, and in- 
fects the surrounding air. Cold and indifferent must be that 
man, who sees such a moral pestilence in his vicinity, and 
does not exert his whole energies to prevent its spread. ' I 
am a man,' said an illustrious Roman, once a slave ; ' nothing 
which touches human nature is foreign to me.' Shall a ' 
Christian, born free, entertain a sentiment less noble ? God 
and Christianity forbid it. 

Note. — Since the first edition of this pamphlet was published, I learn 
that there had been two or three of the examples which Dr Beecher 
would call * pernicious. 5 They render it more important, that the public- 
should comprehend the danger to christian liberty. 



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